ally than is desirable, that it
has been necessary to get rid of them by Act of Parliament. It is love
that alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in
ourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern.
Our concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them
that enter into life--although we know it not.

AEschylus did so order himself; but his life is not of that inspiriting
kind that can be won through fighting the good fight only--or being
believed to have fought it. His voice is the echo of a drone,
drone-begotten and drone-sustained. It is not a tone that a man must
utter or die--nay, even though he die; and likely enough half the
allusions and hard passages in AEschylus of which we can make neither
head nor tail are in reality only puffs of some of the literary leaders
of his time.

The lady above referred to told me more about her parrots. She was like
a Nasmyth's hammer going slow--very gentle, but irresistible. She always
read the newspaper to them. What was the use of having a newspaper if
one did not read it to one's parrots?

"And have you divined," I asked, "to which side they incline in
politics?"

"They do not like Mr. Gladstone," was the somewhat freezing answer; "this
is the only point on which we disagree, for I adore him. Don't ask more
about this, it is a great grief to me. I tell them everything," she
continued, "and hide no secret from them."

"But can any parrot be trusted to keep a secret?"

"Mine can."

"And on Sundays do you give them the same course of reading as on a week-
day, or do you make a difference?"

"On Sundays I always read them a genealogical chapter from the Old or New
Testament, for I can thus introduce their names without profanity. I
always keep tea by me in case they should ask for it in the night, and I
have an Etna to warm it for them; they take milk and sugar. The old
white-headed clergyman came to see them last night; it was very painful,
for Jocko reminded him so strongly of his late . . . "

I thought she was going to say "wife," but it proved to have been only of
a parrot that he had once known and loved.

One evening she was in difficulties about the quarantine, which was
enforced that year on the Italian frontier. The local doctor had gone
down that morning to see the Italian doctor and arrange some details.
"Then, perhaps, my dear," she said to her husband, "he is the
quarantine."